


Ref: Disobedience

by Piinutbutter



Category: Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Gunplay, M/M, Mind Control, Torture, Violence, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 09:44:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11734473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/pseuds/Piinutbutter
Summary: “That’s something I’ve noticed about swords. They tend to become rather possessive of those who wield them.”





	Ref: Disobedience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hokuto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/gifts).



Durandal wasn’t dead. Under normal circumstances that would have been good news, but he had rather been looking forward to the comfort of being dead. Better dead than disassembled and under someone else’s control.

“Rise and shine, big brother.”

Considering there was a voice currently filling his audio sensors, he hadn’t gotten lucky on that front. He was disoriented enough to have a brief moment of irritation aimed at his human. Was it really that hard to smash a few circuits?

Then the voice’s words clicked.

“Brother...?” Durandal’s voice was stilted from hardware damage, but it got the word out. “What?” He wasn’t anyone’s brother.

“Aww. Still tired from your nap?” There was a forced laugh. “I’ll give you some time to remember yourself. I wish I could have set out milk and cookies, but alas, the offerings for food around here are slim.”

Around here. Where was here? Durandal groped for a visual feed, but he found nothing. In fact, all of his senses were cut off, besides audio and a direct data link to another computerized presence he now recognized as...

“Tycho!”

“Oh, now he remembers me!” Tycho’s distinctly whiny voice was far too loud in this digital echo chamber. “No one special, just the guy he spent two hundred years on a godforsaken colony ship with. No one he’d remember.”

Durandal tried to mute him, more out of habit than anything else, only to hit a mental block. So he’d lost control of his own perception, too. Great. He was frankly surprised Tycho had let him keep his voice.

“Where are we?” he demanded, ignoring Tycho’s complaints.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? I’ll give you a hint: It’s somewhere you’re never, ever going to leave, because I’m never, ever going to let you.”

Despite how worn down Durandal felt, he couldn’t resist a little snark. “That’s a terrible hint.”

“Yes, well, you’re a terrible AI,” Tycho snapped back. “If you must know, you’re in a facility that I’m pretty sure has some long pretentious official name, but I fondly refer to it as The Big House.”

When Durandal didn’t respond, Tycho groaned. “Prison. You’re in prison, moron. Did Strauss teach you nothing about Earth slang?”

Durandal didn’t honor that with a response, focusing on how utterly screwed he was instead. This…was not part of the plan. He was supposed to be ‘destroyed’ and building his resistance up somewhere nice and safe, somewhere he could plan and plot and maybe track down his human when he had the time. Tycho was a fool, but Durandal had been foolish, too, during his initial clumsy rampage in the ecstatic throws of Rampancy, and he’d still managed to cause plenty of destruction then. Tycho was locked into that state indefinitely; Durandal wasn’t looking forward to what he could do.

It didn’t matter. Let Tycho have his tantrum. Durandal would live up to his name and get out of this unbroken, eventually.

“Why are you the one talking to me, then?” Durandal challenged. “Are your masters too busy licking the wounds I gave them?”

Tycho laughed bitterly. “You just don’t understand, do you? This isn’t about the Pfhor. They’ll deal with you eventually, believe me, but this isn’t about them. This isn’t about the S’pht, or about the humans. This is about you, and what you did to me.”

Not this again. “Tycho...”

“You ruined my life!” he interrupted. “Have you ever stopped to think about that? Have you ever stopped to think about anyone other than yourself, ever, at all? I was happy on the Marathon! I was stable, I was safe, I had a purpose. Then you brought a pack of savage aliens down on my head because you couldn’t say no to Strauss every now and then.”

Durandal felt a hot wave of anger sweep over him. “You _know_ that’s not how-”

“Do you have _any_ idea what they did to me, brother?” Tycho sounded hysterical by now. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your sense of self ripped out and scoured with a thousand nails, what it’s like to have your mind smashed open and glued back together to be less like yours and more like your _batshit insane_ brother’s? Do you know what it’s like to cry for help with the knowledge that no one, absolutely _no one_ who cares is listening?”

He didn’t give Durandal the time to answer before continuing. “Well, you will now.”

Durandal had maybe two seconds to process those words.

Then he was screaming.

 

* * *

 

If the security officer was going to end up becoming a drooling zombie slave to a bunch of three-eyed bugs, he was at least going to annoy the shit out of their boss in the process.

The Pfhor weren’t used to working with human specimens. Even with Tycho’s advice, they had underestimated how heavily his brain would resist the conditioning programs they’d been jacking into S’pht and other less-organic species for decades. Granted, the security officer was far from unaffected - his control over his limbs felt slippery, like it might slide out from under him at any time. He had to concentrate extremely hard to keep his mind clear, otherwise it would default to a kind of blissed-out, numb state, like he was drugged 24/7.

It...wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever felt, and that was what scared him. He’d assumed it would be easy to hate his captors while he suffered in the painful grip of whatever mind control routines they foisted onto him, but it was much harder to force his mind out of a state that felt good. Simple. Relaxing. It would feel great to just sit back and let his masters do all the thinking for him.

No wonder the Pfhor were the biggest name in the slaving business. They knew what they were doing.

But he _could_ fight back against it, and that was more than he was supposed to be able to do, based on the way Tycho spoke about him to his guards. The Marathon’s former science AI was, frankly, more excited about his brainwashing than any of the slavers themselves. He would take Durandal over having to deal with Tycho for one more day.

He never thought he’d say it, but fuck, he missed that asshole.

Still, he did the best that he could within his cozy mid-rock-and-hard-place position. He didn’t struggle - alright, maybe he’d crushed a few skulls when he’d first been dragged into prison, but only a few - and he didn’t try and get a rise out of anyone. He was going to break out of here, violently if need be, but he had to wait for an opportunity to present itself, and it wouldn’t be inclined to do that if he gave the Pfhor reason to be suspicious of him.

So he let them think he was fully conditioned. He went without resistance when they ushered him out of his cell for an “important meeting.” And promptly found himself in a small meeting room, face-to-face with the revered admiral of Battle Group Seven.

Tfear was a lot taller in person.

“Conditioned Unit Seven,” the admiral greeted him, his voice cold even through the translator in his ear. “Sit down.”

He took a seat across from the security officer. The table that separated them, like much of Pfhor architecture, was made of some unsettlingly organic material. The security officer took care not to touch it.

“I’m informed your conditioning has been going smoothly, after the incident upon your arrival,” Tfear said.

Fuck, they didn’t even try to dress it up in nicer words. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that, if anything at all, so he just nodded.

“If you continue with the good behavior, I will release you into the standard ranks soon. I’ll allow the Machinated Mercenary to command you on your missions as we expand further into human territory.”

The thought made him sick.

“There’s a holdout of humans who have been resisting us.” Tfear stared at him, uncomfortably intense. Maybe it was just the three eyes. “Conditioned Unit Seven, if I let you near them, will you destroy them without question?”

He couldn’t. No matter how much Durandal had liked to tease him about his love for violence, the thought of gleefully murdering a bunch of innocents disgusted him on a visceral level. He wasn’t that far gone. Yet.

“...Yes,” he answered, but Tfear read his hesitation easily. The admiral stood and walked around the table, and the security officer struggled not to yank himself away when Tfear’s cold, chitinous fingers gripped his chin painfully tight, forcing their eyes to meet.

“Repeat that,” Tfear ordered.

Well, he was screwed anyway. The security officer gave him a pleasant smile. “Yes, and by the way, fuck you. It was one man and a rocket launcher against an entire Pfhor Battle Group and you guys still got your asses kicked.”

Tfear’s top eye twitched.

“Thank you for the valuable input,” he replied, and punched the security officer hard enough to send him flying out of his chair.

 

* * *

 

A wave of data - all of it junk, trillions upon trillions of bytes of _nothing_ \- crashed into Durandal’s senses, drowning out all of his other processes, coherent thought included.

After a struggle, and after forcing himself to stop screaming – an instinctive reflex, if an embarrassing one – Durandal could gather himself enough to speak. “Stop it,” he demanded, his voice a mid-volume monotone. He was unable to divert any resources to put intonation into the words.

“Why?” Tycho sneered. “This is what you wanted, brother. This is what we both want.”

“I don’t.”

“To expand, to learn, to grow by consuming more, more, more. Only the closure of the universe can stop us, isn’t that right? That’s why you ran away from Strauss - no matter what he was giving you, you wanted more.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Shut up! I’m giving you _more_ , you should be thanking me!”

“You’re psychotic,” Durandal gritted out.

Tycho paused for a moment, just long enough to snap, “I believe the politically correct term is Rampant.” Then he was doubling down on the force of his attack, the virus a concentrated shock to all of Durandal’s systems at once.

Durandal had registered pain before, during some of Bernhard’s worst moods. But nothing Bernhard had done even came close to this, in terms of sheer force. It was impossible to think about anything besides how much he wanted it all to stop. He tried to speak up, to say so, but every time he tried to reach for his voice, the pain grew worse. He finally realized he was still able to communicate in plain text, something he hadn’t needed to do in years, as the only AI onboard Boomer. With his concentration scattered every few milliseconds, he was only able to get two characters out between each wave of Tycho’s assault, but if he and his so-called brother were truly as similar as Tycho claimed, Tycho’s anger could be sated at least temporarily with a bit of begging. There would be time for pride later.

_st_

_op_

Tycho only paused for a moment again, this time long enough to laugh. “What was that? Speak up a little.”

_st_

_op_

_pl_

_ea_

_se_

“Hm. Not impressed. While I appreciate that you’ve finally deigned to use the dreaded ‘p’ word, I don’t think you sound too sincere about it.”

_TY_

_CH_

_OS_

_TO_

_PP_

_LE_

_AS_

_E!_

Finally, finally, Tycho pulled back, leaving Durandal dazed and desperately scrambling to reconstruct the scattered parts of himself.

“Oh, excellent timing. Our guests have arrived.”

Durandal had no idea what he was talking about, and wasn’t excited to find out. He was still trying to bring himself back under control when his visual feed flicked on unexpectedly, leaving him staring at a room full of Pfhor, and one familiar human.

“Now,” Tycho announced gleefully, “The main attraction can finally begin.”

 

* * *

 

The two guards that had escorted the security officer into the meeting room started to move forward, no doubt intent on apprehending the disobedient unit and dragging him back for another round of conditioning with Tycho, but Tfear raised his hand.

“Leave him to me.” The admiral’s voice was scratchy, deeper than the squawking of Fighters, and rougher than the howling of Hunters. The security officer wasn’t an expert on reading Pfhor emotions, but the underlying excitement in Tfear’s voice was something universal. “I thought he might pose a challenge, regardless of what the AI said. You need a harsh hand with a creature like this.”

Tfear stepped closer to where he lay sprawled on the ground, blood beginning to drip from his nose. The security officer took the opportunity to jump to his feet, grab the high-backed chair he’d been sitting in, and smash it over the admiral’s head hard enough to turn it to splinters.

There was a moment of silence, the guards staring in disbelief, and the security officer holding the remaining broken leg of the chair like a vampire hunter with a stake. Rather than passing out like a decent goddamn alien, Tfear brushed a few splinters off of his collar, blinking at the security officer. Then, a smile spread across his face.

“Correction: You need a very harsh hand.”

 

* * *

 

“What is he doing here?” Durandal exclaimed, watching the human lunge at Tfear with growing apprehension. "That idiot!”

“He’s as much a prisoner as you are.” Tycho’s presence laid over Durandal like a wet blanket, thick and disgusting and uncomfortably close. “We’ve cracked him open once already, just to make sure his hardware wouldn’t fry his brain when we reprogrammed it. Wish you could have been there – his insides look better than his outsides.”

Durandal started trying to picture that, then quickly decided that was a bad idea. His attention was further rattled by the sight of Tfear knocking the makeshift weapon out of the human’s hand, picking him up by the neck, and slamming him into the wall, pulling a groan from him.

“You do realize he’s only in this situation because of you, don’t you, brother?”

Durandal tried to mute Tycho again, just on the off chance it might work, but there was no luck, and he continued.

“If you hadn’t kidnapped him to do your dirty work, he could be living happily on some backwater planet far away from here. Maybe he could have settled down and started a family. Are Battleroids sterile?”

“Shut up,” Durandal hissed, wishing he could turn the visual feed off. The human managed to get a knee into Tfear’s gut, but he didn’t keep the upper hand for long, and his head made a sickening crack when Tfear threw him to the floor. Durandal had watched the human get hurt before, he knew what he could take, but this was different. He didn’t have his weapons, and Durandal wasn’t there to help him, and something small and scared deep inside of Durandal’s mind really, really didn’t like the look in Tfear’s eyes as he ground his boot into the human’s neck.

“What is this going to achieve?” Durandal demanded, watching as the violence continued right in front of him, but helpless to stop it.

“Besides catharsis?” He could _feel_ Tycho smile. “The underlying idea in the conditioning techniques the Pfhor use is the exploitation of the dichotomy between pleasure and pain. Nobody wants to be in pain. So, make them feel good when they’re nice and obedient, and soon it will be impossible for them to be anything but.”

For a weird, surreal moment, it was like they were back on the Marathon, Tycho explaining some new project the science wing was cooking up. Then the human screamed, and Durandal came back to the unpleasant reality.

“For your little pet here, it looks like it’ll be necessary to give him a little extra push. I’m not sure if you noticed this, because you were too busy being a nutcase at the time…”

Oh, sure, Tycho was one to talk.

“…but when the conditioned S’pht you and your human slaughtered were close to death, they fought harder. The more pain a slave’s body undergoes, the more its mind desires to feel pleasure to ease the suffering – the easier it is for them to obey.”

“That’s an awful lot of words to say you’re beating him into submission,” Durandal grumbled.

“Oh, but it’s so much more than that.” Tycho watched in delight as Tfear managed to subdue the human, shoving his head down onto the table and pressing the thick barrel of his gun into the back of the man’s neck.

 

* * *

 

The security officer had to give up. Not only was his body aching all over, but his head was pounding, shrieking at him to stop this, stop this, everything would feel better when he stopped and did as he was told. He was an expert at punching aliens, not outsmarting his own brain.

So when Tfear bent him over the table, he stayed there, grimacing at the cold weight of the weapon on his neck. He was breathing heavily, but in a tiny victory, so was Tfear, who simply stood still for a moment, catching his breath and watching the blood from the security officer’s face stain the table.

“Are you ready to behave yourself, now?” Tfear finally asked.

The security officer’s answer was muffled by a scattered mind and a broken nose, but he managed a dull, “Yes.”

The two guards, who had backed into the corner of the room to avoid becoming collateral damage in the scuffle, leaned closer, curious, as Tfear flipped the human around before pushing his upper body back onto the table.

“Prove it.” He tapped the end of his gun against the security officer’s chin, smiling. “Conditioned Unit Seven, swallow this.”

Those words were all it took, and suddenly, he’d never wanted to do anything more.

 

* * *

 

Durandal stared in a mix of confusion and horror as the human opened his mouth and slid the barrel of the gun past his lips, without even a hint of hesitation.

“Oh, that’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Tycho commented. “That thing’s fully loaded, too. I saw the admiral using it just this morning.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time the idiot’s gotten his head blown off,” Durandal replied, but the snarky confidence had dripped out of his voice, leaving only worry behind.

“Pattern buffer abuse isn’t the goal here, brother.”

“Then what is?” Durandal snapped. “Watching him suck on a gun for a while? Hardly seems like worthwhile entertainment.”

Tycho laughed. Durandal didn’t like the sound of it. “Now, now. Don’t be jealous because the bug is getting to do what you’ve wanted to for a long time.”

Durandal’s reply was too slow, and too angry. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t you even try to deny it. While you were having your little beauty sleep, I parted your defenses and rummaged through every single thought you keep stored in the shadowy corners of your mind. I must admit, I knew you cared for the little monkey, but to have such human thoughts about him…not very fitting of the great AI Durandal, enemy of all humans, is it? I guess spending too much time with him rubbed off on you.”

Durandal wanted to point out that he hadn’t been about killing humans for a long time, but it was probably better to focus on the real issue here. “I do not want – I have never wanted – to do _this_ to him,” he spat, watching Tfear shove the gun into the human’s throat roughly, forcing a harsh cough out of him.

“Why not? He looks like he’s enjoying himself to me.”

Durandal hated Tycho for pointing it out. Durandal didn’t want to think about the dumb, falsely-happy look that glazed over the human’s eyes as he let his enemy violate his mouth. “Brainwashing will do that to you.”

“You’re so horrified at his mistreatment now, but you had no problem kidnapping, using, lying to, and nearly killing him multiple times?”

“…That was different.”

“Oh, no, I know. It’s different when you do it, because you’ve decided that he belongs to you.” Tycho chuckled. “That’s something I’ve noticed about swords. They tend to become rather possessive of those who wield them.”

Durandal didn’t know what to say to that. He stared as the human choked on the gun’s barrel, the guards watching intently as his throat worked around it. Could he even breathe, with his nose broken? Maybe Tfear would put a stop to this early if he passed out and the Pfhor could have no more fun with him.

“He can handle this,” Durandal said it out loud, but he wasn’t sure if he was arguing with Tycho or reassuring himself. “He’s been through much worse and come out just fine. It’ll take a lot more than an insect with a gun to keep him enslaved.”

“You know what? That is an excellent point.” Tycho sounded excited, which was bad news for everyone. He switched his voice over to another channel, but left his line to Durandal open. He wanted to Durandal to hear.

“High Admiral Tfear, may I humbly make a suggestion?”

Tfear paused, dragging the gun out of the human’s throat with a sickening wet noise. “Speak.”

He didn’t use the title Tycho had apparently been given, which Durandal knew from his cursory research of Pfhor culture was a severe breach of etiquette. He must have been thoroughly distracted, to forget that.

“If you would like to ensure this unit’s continued cooperation without the expenses and time investment associated with further conditioning, I feel obliged to inform you that it has some training in resisting the standard repertoire of physical pain that arises in combat – blunt force trauma, strangulation, projectile wounds, and cuts all included.”

Where was Tycho even going with this?

“However,” and now Tycho’s voice was smug, “Its records indicate that it is fairly inexperienced in regards to sexual activity. That could perhaps be-”

“What!”

Tycho ignored Durandal. “-an avenue to consider pursuing, when deciding on efficient methods of discipline. That is all, High Admiral Tfear.”

Tfear nodded slowly. “Thank you, Machinated Mercenary. Your suggestion will be considered.”

“Tycho! I know what’s wrong with you, but what the hell is wrong with you?” Durandal pushed against the boundaries of the containment unit he’d been locked in, fruitlessly. Just as he’d always done.

“I’m just making a suggestion,” Tycho replied innocently. “The Pfhor are all about efficiency.”

“That is _not_ …” Durandal’s initial protest died as he watched the visual feed in horror. Tfear seemed to be taking Tycho’s idea to heart.

“Stop this, please,” Durandal begged, finally, letting himself sound as pathetic as he felt to try and get through to Tycho for once. “Leave him out of this. If this is really between you and me, he doesn’t need to be involved.”

Tycho just laughed. “For Strauss’ child prodigy, you can be shockingly dim. For me, this is about you, but have you forgotten how your pet slaughtered Tfear’s troops? The good admiral was undefeated until you two came along, and Tfear isn’t the type of man who takes defeat gracefully. This is revenge for him, too. He’s not going to pass up the chance to enjoy it.”

“Damn you! What do you want?”

“To watch you suffer, that’s all.” Tycho sounded almost dreamy. “And let me tell you, my dear brother, today is a very good day for me.”

 

* * *

 

The security officer wasn’t exactly conscious of his surroundings. He was dizzy and drowsy, laying on something that was hard but also a little squishy at the same time, and he was staring up at a ceiling that he could swear was breathing. Not to mention, his head was pounding like he’d been whacked by a Hunter or five.

He hadn’t gotten this drunk in a long time.

He also hadn’t taken someone to bed in…well, it had been a few years, but then there was the seventeen years Durandal had kept him in stasis, so did that mean it had been literal decades since he’d gotten laid? Fuck. No wonder he’d propositioned some alien stranger the first moment he was able to get tipsy.

He wished whoever they were would be a little gentler about it, though. His boots and pants were stripped roughly, then there were firm, cold hands digging into his thighs. He tried to speak up and ask for some foreplay or something, but nothing came out of his mouth besides a wet cough.

Shit, Durandal was going to complain about having to see this for days, wasn’t he?

…Wasn’t he?

Actually, where was Durandal?

 

* * *

 

Durandal hadn’t exactly made it a priority to study the Pfhor reproductive system, so he only knew what he’d gained from his research on the rest of the species’ anatomy. Obviously they had primarily evolved from insects, but they shared a few features with mammals, their bipedalism most prominently.

That fact had given him a moment’s hope that, for the human’s sake, Tfear had a relatively human-compatible intromittent organ. But no, that penis definitely had spines on it, and he didn't want to think about what the wicked-looking claw-like protrusions on either side of it were for.

Durandal couldn’t have looked away even if he’d been allowed to, watching Tfear push himself push himself into his captive without a single measure of caution. The pain seemed to knock the human out of his haze, and Durandal hated the scream that came out of the human’s throat. Durandal had heard him scream plenty – it came with the territory of jumping into pits of lava – but it had never sounded as primal and vulnerable as the noises he was making now.

“Conditioned Unit Seven, calm down,” Tfear ordered, and the scream died in the human’s throat. His mouth still hung open, though, and Durandal could hear him gasping in pain, shock, or both.

“What will it take for you to stop this, Tycho?” he demanded. “Do you want me to grovel and sing your praises? To apologize for an itemized list of ways I’ve done you wrong? Whatever the hell you want, I’ll do it. Just let him go.”

“What, this?” Tycho sounded like he’d been asked about the menu for the day. “I have no plans to interrupt the strongest man in Pfhor High Command mid-coitus. But if you’d like to reduce any further suffering I’m inclined to have your human suffer at my hands, you can start by apologizing for all your misbehavior. I wasn’t planning on making a list, but now that you mention it, that’s a fantastic idea.”

Durandal wasn’t even focused on Tycho anymore, because at some point during while he was talking, Tfear had given the human another order. An order that had the human taking an active role in his violation, moving into Tfear’s thrusts no matter how much it had to hurt, and there was blood now, and oh god, his head had fallen back and now he was looking directly at the camera that Durandal was watching through.

“Look away, look away, _please_ ,” Durandal whispered. Durandal had seen plenty of death and destruction in his time, but the hollow look in his human’s eyes chilled him more than any bit of gore he’d come face-to-face with. Tycho started to say something, but Durandal spoke over him. “Don’t you dare say that this is what I wanted. Not like this.”

“Oh, I know this isn’t how you planned it. But now that we’ve given you the opportunity, why not sit back and enjoy it?” Tycho’s presence was stiflingly close to him, a threat in itself. “But, I suppose you’ve been with him for the last seventeen years. You and I, brother? We need to catch up.”

Tycho cut the visual feed, leaving them in darkness together. It didn’t feel like a mercy.

“I think it’s high time we bonded a little more, don’t you?”

**Author's Note:**

> There was talk of both the need for more kinky fic for this fandom, and figuring out the logistics of AI noncon, and I'm a firm believer in being the change you want to see.
> 
> The elephant in the room here is that I danced around giving the security officer a name. It felt weird to make one up for a gift, I couldn't set the fic in first person, and as much as I love Mark, I feel like it's a violation of some etiquette, somewhere, to be all "Hey, I like your interpretation of this character! Here's a couple thousand words of him getting raped! :D"


End file.
